Revealing the Past: A Time of Honor
by Ariao
Summary: The first in a five-book mini series. See the Author's Note inside for what this is really about.
1. Author's Note

_If I'm really gonna tell this story right, I should start with my first time I joined marching band. Hopefully by then, everything will make more sense. This story, I hope, will serve two purposes, one self-aimed…the other for those of you who can understand the complex world that we live in and therefore can perhaps understand the frustration I held at the end. I'm not sure if any of you reading this will be from my area…or even be from the group I came from, but I still have this desire to tell this story._

_But I'm losing track here. Though this is mainly a marching band story, I must admit that part of this little mini-series will include the things done out of Marching Season. Don't worry, I'll try to stick to what really matters and keep away from the more boring things, although most of you will probably find this story to be just that._

_To those of you that do manage to read it, more power to you. Perhaps you can learn from the mistakes I made and keep the pain I felt from happening to you. If that happens, then I will have fulfilled my mission in the end. If not…oh well._

_The names are going to be kept original, so anyone from the small town where this story takes place reading this, sorry, but I want this story to show the truth of the matter, not some random fictional work set to appease the mind. And if I spell your names wrong, I apologize now. It's not meant in a show of disrespect…it's just that spell check is refusing to let me put in anything else._

_I wish all of you fellow marching members the best of luck in your paths, be they in music or otherwise, as you read these (If you choose to continue reading past this) and I hope you all have the best time possible in your upcoming seasons._

_Warmest Regards,_

_Ariao (A.K.A. Amanda)_


	2. Days Before Band Camp

The first day of summer band camp, I was scared. I'll be one of the few to admit it, but I really was. My past with my fellow bandies wasn't all rainbows and sunshine. As far as I could tell, I was the outcast in middle school and I didn't expect this to be any different.

It didn't help that I had just managed to join as a first-time-ever-player on the Trombone. I had spent all of my grade school and the majority of my middle school band life as a clarinet player. Not that there was anything wrong with that! I loved playing the clarinet. I'm just the type of person that needs a bit of a challenge. And being forced to play the same things three times in the four weeks of the month over and over again was too much for me to handle at that age. Plus…the trombone was what I had originally wanted to play from the start, but we had to save up a lot more money to buy one while a clarinet was basically given to us almost for free.

_Anyhow_, I wasn't in the most open frame of mind as I sat in my seat and leaned back against the chair. No one there knew at the time that I was an eighth-grader, and I planned to keep it that way for as long as I could.

At this point, we had section leaders. The low-brass section leader was our lone tuba player named Daniel. And before anyone starts getting on about that, let me clarify that we were, and still are, a small group, so only one tuba player was basically all we could really keep. When he handed me the packet of marching music, he introduced me to the section and everyone seemed nice enough. But I had a hard time really opening up to anyone at that point in time.

Once practice finally started, I was a bit more at ease, though still not completely trusting my section members. We spent the rest of that short day practicing the bits of music, mainly focusing on the half-time show. I have to admit now that that year's selection is and always will be my favorite from the Ravenswood Marching Band. The score that held all the pieces together said that it was what happened when there was no teacher in the room and the band members were playing around: _Phantom of the Piano Studio_.

We spent the rest of the week working on the music alone in our sections before coming together at the end to see if we could pull it off without losing each other along the way. It was the next week that made my life a nightmare in a sense.

* * *

I never really thought much about the complexity of actually marching. It didn't help much that I could barely hear anything that day.

We were out on the side of the school, not too far from the door that led to where the music rooms and cafeteria were, and there were lines painted on the grass that showed how far a marching step would be. Our instructor, Mrs. Paxton, told us that we were practicing and reviewing the different marching steps while turning from right to front to left to front to right…and so forth. We were all in a line and I happened to get stuck in the back behind the auxiliary group. I had no idea what Mrs. Paxton was saying and I couldn't really see the demonstration she was giving since she was mainly hidden by the number of kids in front of me.

When it finally came to my turn to try, I was still totally clueless as to how she wanted it done, so I just went with the first thing I could think of, which happened to be the marching-run-step(sorry for all you auxiliary members, I don't know what it's actually called). I didn't realize it was wrong until after Mrs. Paxton called me out on it. She had me stand to the side as the boy behind me, a saxophone-player named Derek, showed me how it was really done.

I felt like a complete idiot then. Once I got back in line, I was determined to get it right. Again, my turn came and I tried to remember what I had seen earlier. In my opinion, I thought I had done well on it, but apparently there was another problem. After I got done with my set of turns, Mrs. Paxton called me to her again and then had our drum major, Kristen, show me about the actual technique of marching.

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I followed Kristen to the side and she showed me what the problem had been. Apparently, and I don't understand _how_ this had happened, but apparently when I walked, my feet would roll in from the side. It was never something I had been aware of before, but she told me about the sticky-note technique. Most, if not all, of you know the one I'm talking about: the one where you pretend to have a sticky note with something written on it and you want the people in the press box to be able to see it. It's impossible of course, but the idea is the technique of how to march, toes in the air and roll from the heel.

I was glad Kristen was patient with me, because it took a while for me to actually get used to this "new way of walking" if you will. My foot kept trying to turn on its side again and she would point it out calmly…almost as if she had been through this and was used to helping others learn how to march.

* * *

The next day was back outside with marching practices. Only this time, we were learning the turns. Right-face, Left-face, About-face. I had been feeling a bit more confident from yesterday's marching success. This session basically destroyed my confidence. I could do the About-face after a couple of tries, but no matter how hard I tried to focus, I kept getting the Left- and Right-faces mixed up and wind up facing the opposite way needed. After a bit of this, Mrs. Paxton told the section leaders to go through each of us and make sure we could all do it.

You can probably guess where Daniel decided to start. Dylan and Emily, the other two trombone players, as well as R.L. and Daniela, the baritone players, already knew how to do all this. I was the only new one in the group.

We spent the full fifteen minutes just trying to get me to learn the faces. I was surprised again at how patient everyone was being. After I could do one, Daniel moved on to the other. After I had an idea, he started mixing them up. If it hadn't been for Emily doing them with me at that point, I would have been hopelessly lost.

After that, I was starting to feel a bit better about being in the marching band…even, dare I say it, feeling a bit of trust towards some of them. Although I still barely knew names, I felt that at least some of them, I could put trust in.


	3. The Fun of Band Camp

A couple more weeks of this passed and then we were on to the real fun: Band Camp. And that meant we were there from eight in the morning to eight at night on our "holey" practice field. Notice how I said that last bit. Yeah, our so called practice field was nothing more than that space between the road and the school since we were forbidden from using the football field. Remember that little bit in the last chapter where we practiced the marching step? Yeah, that same place became our handmade football field. Step wrong and you could possibly twist an ankle.

Did I mention the heat yet? Doesn't look like it. Yeah, during that time (last few days of July and the rest of the first week in August) happened to be the _hottest_ week in years at our small river-side town.

The first few hours weren't that bad…it was when we stood in the glare of the sun during the afternoon hours and our instructors stood in the shade of a tree that really started to affect us. We didn't have charts, so we had to wait as our director, her assistant, and our drum major put us all in our next spots. Then they'd have us go back and march to that new spot a few times. And then after we got five spots on the field, they'd have us go back and do the entire bit that we knew a few more times, playing all the while.

Personally, I think that's what started it. While marching alone would have saved us some energy, adding the playing during that dry heat only made it worse. It reached over 100 degrees F for the _entire_ week. By the time Wednesday rolled in, we were dead on our feet, and over half of us were getting sick from it. Literally.

When only six members of our thirty-six member band were left standing by Thursday evening, our instructors decided to have a talk with us.

We all filed into the cafeteria and sat, facing the direction of our practice field. Mrs. Paxton proceeded to scold us for playing the "monkey-see-monkey-do" game. While I'll admit that there were a few of us doing it, I also felt a bit mad that she would accuse us of doing something like that while she sat in the shade of a tree until we learned a new place on the field. What did she honestly expect?

Although I kept my mouth shut then, I was determined to get this show on the field and learn what I had to. That's just how I am. After that little talk, we headed off for our hour dinner break. I decided to join one of my new friends, a clarinet-player named Olivia, instead of sticking it out alone.

It was a bit strange for me to actually do that, since I had never really gone anywhere with another, save for my two friends outside of band in middle school. I'm not exactly what most would call a social butterfly. Quite the opposite in fact, as I had come to prefer being on my own. First time for everything, I guess.

Once we were done, it was back to work on the show. I was feeling pretty good after finally getting some rest in an air conditioner and felt eager to get back to work. Yeah, that lasted about thirty minutes. After that, the heat was pounding on us all again, though thankfully not as harsh. Somehow by the time practice was over, we had managed to get our third song on the field. That only left the touch-ups for the "mini-performance" we put on every year for our parents left for tomorrow at five.

* * *

I should have known it would also be the worst day of the week. The heat was now humid, causing all of us to sweat profusely. We were going back and forth so many times, I was starting to feel like these certain moves were all I'd be able to remember! But the time passed quickly and before I knew it, it was time for lunch. We had an hour to cool off and get ready for the last bit of practice, which thankfully was indoors to practice the few stand tunes we were going to play at the end of our performance.

The rest of the day went smoothly and we were all grateful to be inside where the heat couldn't touch us. Finally, thirty minutes to five, we were let loose to rest up before the big event. Me? I decided to spend that time sitting on the cold tile floor in front of the lockers and trying to remember the moves in the songs we had on the field.

When we got onto the field to perform, I'll admit, I was nervous. I didn't feel like I was prepared to start off on the field in front of an audience, even if it was just for our families and friends. I think I lost it a bit near the end of the third song, where we were doing boxes by section and going in opposite direction, but in the end, I ended up on the right spot and to me, that in itself was an accomplishment. The rest of the performance consisted of us standing in place and playing the last song as well as the few stand tunes we had worked on inside earlier. The applause at the end made me feel like I had done my part in the show, even if I was sure I had messed up more than a few times.

Afterwards, my friend, Olivia, came over and asked me how I felt I did. I told her I thought I did alright, but I knew I had messed up. She just smiled and chucked at that and told me that she was sure she had done the same.

That made my confidence go up a bit, as it told me that even an experienced marching member made many mistakes, which to me had seemed almost impossible. I know that sounds stupid now, but when it's your first year in doing it, you look up to the senior members to show you what to do, not really expecting them to be the ones making mistakes left-and-right.


	4. The First Game

Let me start this chapter with the following statement: _I am not a football fan_. I'm not really one for these types of sports. So when the news comes that the upcoming Friday is a football game, my first reaction was to groan. The way I saw it (before anyone really explained it to me, mind you!) was that we would be sitting in the stands waiting for half-time then go onto the field and do our little performance before heading back and sitting in the stands again for the rest of the game.

Unfortunately at this point, a couple of our members decided to drop out of the marching band, both of which were clarinet players. I couldn't really say at the time that I was sorry to see them go, but at the same time, I wished then that they had left before going through the band camp with the rest of us. It was their choice, though, and, if I'm honest now, I can't really blame them.

But that's getting off track again. We had been practicing all week on the pre-game show, thankfully on the actual football field during after school practice. Although it was still hot from the last of August's summer heat, it was nice to know that we were finally allowed there.

Our first game was an away game against Herbert Hoover High School. And let me tell you now that this whole day just screamed "Bad Day!" Perhaps it was mainly because of my lack of love for football, or perhaps something else, but for whatever reason, I just had a bad feeling on the trip up.

Before I go any further, let me add one little thing here. I hate…_absolutely hate_ heights. Not making sense? Just keep reading.

When we were heading over to the stands where we would be playing from, I nearly froze and told them I refused to go up. However, that would make me seem the weak one in my eyes and I refused to be the weak link any more than I already was. So, trying to swallow my fear, I headed up a few. The bleachers were made of rusting metal and creaking wood. Oh, and did I mention that they went out over a steep drop off? Yeah and guess who had to sit at the top. That's right, the Low Brass Section. At the very top, which seemed all the higher compared to the drop off right below us.

I could barely play our fight song, _Quickie Victors_, for fear that the slightest movement would cause the structure under my feet to collapse.

I guess my fear showed though, because soon all eyes are turning up to look at me. I'm both glad and ashamed that Kristen had to come up and help me down to a more comfortable level where I could see the ground scant feet from under me. That was the third most embarrassing moment I had in marching band, even to this day.

I had no idea what everything that happened meant. I heard the other band kids either cheering or making exclamations of frustration and tried to follow as best I could.

About ten minutes till half-time, we climbed down our death-trap seats and went off to the side, not too far from the bleachers, to warm up and tune. The percussion line went off a bit further to the edge of the area for the field near the brush line that led to the drop off. At about five minute till, we all came back together to run through the songs, at this point without flip folders.

I had to admit that I was terrified. Yes, _terrified_ of playing without the flip folder's guidance as to where to go and what to play at what point, but there was no choice in the matter.

I really wasn't sure what to think of the show. Honestly, I was unable to really focus on anything besides the music that I somehow knew by heart without even realizing it. The steps just came to me and before I knew it, it was over and we were marching off.

After that, we watched the home band perform from the sidelines and then were marching back to the bleachers of death. Thankfully, I was allowed to stay at the lower level rather than head back up to the top, but I was also painfully aware that I was where I didn't belong. I made sure to wait for the rest of my section before heading back to the bus, hoping to hold onto some of the pride I held after the half-time show. Whether I did or not, I still can't really tell…hopefully so.


End file.
